Re: Plastic Surgery on a Conlang

Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> En réponse à Christian Thalmann <cinga@...>:
>
> SNIP: n-infixion
>
> You basically do what is done in Quenya too :)) . You could have the suffix -ne
> still valid, except after some consonants (mostly stops I'd guess, though you
> may want to include fricatives in it) where metathesis would have applied.
That's exactly what I did.  The infixion only happens after stops.
If the stop is already preceded by a glide, the diphthong is collapsed
into a simple vowel: |pawg-| "fight" yields |ponge|.  If the stop is
preceded by any other consonant, the stop is omitted altogether:
|wend-| "jog, run comfortably" ends up as |wenne|.



> You cannot "force" the pronunciation by introducing other spelling rules like
> using double vowels? |kotre| would be ["kOtr@], but |kootre| would be ["ko:tr@]
> (I admit that I steal the idea from Dutch :)) ). But maybe you don't like
> double vowels either...
I do like double vowels, though I prefer using diphtongs such as
|ei ao ou| etc to represent long vowels.  =)

Unfortunately, I'm quite happy with the strict (T)(S)V(C) syllable
structure.  Diphthongs are realized by filling glides into the (S)
or (C) slot.  This prevents "superheavy" syllables.

Furthermore, my native script writes vowels as diacritics on
consonants, which would be problematic with double vowels.



> Why not writing glides as vowels in any case? That's what Italian does, and it
> doesn't look too bad...
True.  In fact, I had already decided to do so when writing the Babel
text in popular notation -- prior to reading your post.  =)  See my
next post for the Babel text.



> Hehe, it looks like your aesthetic preferences match quite well Tolkien's :)) .
> Any will to write final [v] as |f|? :)))
Yes, I'm quite fond of Tolkien's langs, especially Quenya.  The letter
|f| is one of my least favorite, though.  =P


> Oh well, what's my opinion, since it comes from a man who is reviving a
> language which has monsters like |ibolteadg| pronounced ['poUK] (X-SAMPA,
> except that ' marks primary stress), or |himidu| pronounced ['CE~mptU], and
> what about |imuohf| pronounced ['mbu:]? :))) Until now, the nearly worst stays
> |iragft| pronounced ['xa~N] :)), though |eidriuojha| pronounced ['itrYj\@] is
> near in the competition :)) .
::gag::

Heh, very original, and I'm sure it has been lots of fun to spawn,
but its effect on my aesthetic sense is comparable to a Nazgul.  =P



> > Thanx in advance for your -- as always -- prolific feedback...
> > ::sigh::
> >
>
> Hehe, was I prolific enough? :))
Definitely!  It certainly helps healing the emotional wounds of my
previous, ignored posts.  ;-)



> > PS: The name of the conlang was deliberately never mentioned in this
> >     post since it seemed to act as a reply repellant in my previous
> >     posts.  =P
> >
>
> What is it then? I can't remember...
::drumroll::

Obrenje.

::panicked screaming::


-- Christian Thalmann

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